CEOs and Blogs – Mixed Opinions

news.com reports that 59% of CEOs believe blogs are a useful internal communication tool while 47% believe that they are useful for external communication. Of course this means that 41% and 53% are not so excited by blogs:

””Most CEOs are still in a wait-and-see mode when it comes to blogs, mainly due to time limitations and concerns about what they can say publicly,” Leslie Gaines-Ross, a research officer at Burson-Marsteller, said in a statement. “Even though there is greater awareness of the power of blogs today, CEOs may feel that employees expect them to be spending their time running the business.”‘

I’ve had emails and calls today from 5 Aussie company execs interested in blogging after this morning’s interview – looks like times could be changing here in Australia at last?

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Comments

Wow, 5 Calls is pretty good for less than 5 minutes on the t.v. which btw I thought was quite a good wee interview.
In regard to those stats is there a stat for what field those companies for and against are in?

Without wishing to be too simplistic, it shouldn’t take much for a company who already has some form of online presence to take the step into blogging, even if starting small.

CEOs need to see that a blog can be a complementary addition to an existing online strategy.

Issues of what can be communicated on a blog will be tailored from existing policies on what can be shared publicly. The tone and style of delivery are different, and a blog receives and responds to public comments, but the first step into corporate blogging shouldn’t be a totally unknown leap.

What sometimes appears to happen (at least from a fairly tech-savvy consumer point of view) is that companies can think they’ve “made it” online just because they have a website. They were told repeatedly by web design companies, programmers, PR people – everyone – that every company needs a website to survive. That fatalistic attitude backfired – companies now sit on their static web sites, that are little more than online billboards, and think they’re effectively serving their customers.

It’s not just blogging. There are a number of tools that many of us take for granted that don’t feature on many corporate sites. I hope things continue to change.